


raise your glass

by daisylackers



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: LOTS of booze, M/M, spoilers to the end of game, they're both sort of assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylackers/pseuds/daisylackers
Summary: Five times Max and Captain Hawthorne shared a drink, and one time they left the drinking to everyone else.
Relationships: Male Captain/Maximillian DeSoto, The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	raise your glass

The moment Max had set eyes on Alex Hawthorne, he’d known there was something different about the man. He’d chalked it up to Hawthorne not being an Edgewater resident – and therefore not ground down by the monotony of life at the cannery like everyone else in that miserable backwater. The Captain reminded him a little of some of the inmates of Tartarus. Foul-mouthed, disrespectful, and most notably of course – almost certainly a career criminal.

But it was only after inveigling himself onto Hawthorne’s ship – the Unreliable, and what a poor omen _that_ was – and arriving at the Groundbreaker that Max had really started to appreciate just how different Captain Alex Hawthorne really was. How _strange_.

For starters, Max was pretty confident that ‘Alex Hawthorne’ was not the man’s real name. Still, that wasn’t so unusual – at least outside of Terra 2. There were plenty of outlaws who used false names to try and evade the Board. But secondly – and much more strangely – the Captain appeared to know absolutely nothing about anything.

“You don’t know who Chairman Rockwell is?” Max exclaimed, taken aback.

“No?” said Hawthorne. He was only half paying attention, busy examining the label of his Zero Gee Brew like he’d never seen one before. “Should I?”

“Well, every knows who the Chairman is!” said Parvati. She was distracted herself, looking nervously around at the other patrons of the Lost Hope. Max dimly recalled that he’d never seen her in the Edgewater Cantina. “He runs the Board. Just about the most famous person in all Halcyon I’d say.”

“Oh?” said the Captain, digging around in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “So, he’s the asshole-in-chief is he?”

“I’m sure Chairman Rockwell is a diligent leader who works hard for the benefit of the colony,” said Max firmly.

The Captain snorted and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “Sure vicar. Seems like he’s _real_ on top of things. What a paradise.”

And that wasn’t even the half of it. Hawthorne hadn’t heard of any of the aetherwave serials. He didn’t know the first thing about Monarch, despite his determination to secure a NavKey for the planet. He’d never heard of the OSI, or the Grand Architect, or any of the major corporations. It was like he’d been born yesterday. Grown in some sort of a vat and unleashed upon Halcyon with nothing but an itchy trigger finger and a seemingly bottomless well of contempt for the Board.

He also smoked like chimney stack – a habit Max despised. The matter was made doubly worse when they acquired Doctor Fenhill. The two of them together smelt like some filthy old ashtray in a backwater dive bar. Max was grateful for the Unreliable’s air-scrubbers, which worked overtime to keep the ashy smell from lingering in the ship’s galley.

And yet… by the Law there was s _omething_ about the man. The strangeness wasn’t off-putting, and incredibly the smoking habit wasn’t really either. Max had always abhorred a mystery, and Alex Hawthorne was certainly one of those. Mysteries needed solving, be they the Universal Equation, or shady mercenary captains.

The Unreliable was currently slogging its way through space on route to Monarch. Night and day didn’t mean much off-world, but the ship’s chronometer ran on Terra 2 time. People still slept during the night hours, out of sheer habit. Most people, at least. Max couldn’t sleep. His knee ached, the old injury acting up like it always did in low gravity, and it was keeping him awake.

After two fruitless hours of tossing and turning, Max gave up and dragged himself out of his bunk. Maybe if Doctor Fenhill were up he could ask her for some painkillers. Or if not, there was always the option to self-medicate with Spectrum Vodka and Adreno. Not the most judicious course of action perhaps, but then Max had been shot at by several dozen different people over the past fortnight, so making healthy choices seemed a little redundant. He just wanted his knee to stop hurting.

He shrugged his clothes on in the dim light of his narrow quarters. The bright lights out in the corridor made him curse and squint. He couldn’t hear anything but the constant low rumble of the ship’s workings. It seemed everyone else was indeed asleep. The Adreno was down on the main deck, so trying – and failing – not to limp, Max awkwardly took the stairs.

It seemed someone else _was_ awake after all. Max could hear the murmur of voices coming from the cockpit. Curious, he tried to stay quiet as he hobbled across the deck plating. Fortunately, he hadn’t bothered to put on his boots, and his bare feet made hardly any noise against the chilly steel floor.

“… what were his hobbies?” that was the Captain speaking.

“Hobbies?” replied the electronic voice of ADA.

“Yeah, hobbies. What did he do for fun?”

“Fun?”

The Captain sighed. “ADA, I know you know what I’m saying here. Just answer the damn question.”

There was a protracted pause.

“I believe Captain Hawthorne enjoyed playing cards in his spare time when he was not aboard the Unreliable. He would occasionally lose large sums of money.”

“Did he ever _win_ large sums of money?”

“Once.” Was that _fondness_ Max detected in ADA’s voice? “He won a thousand bits from a senior Sublight contractor in Stellar Bay. As I recall, she was most upset about the loss and attempted to shoot Captain Hawthorne in the back as he returned to the Unreliable.”

“In the _back_?”

“That is what Captain Hawthorne told me.”

“I guess she missed.”

“Indeed. I believe she then fell over as a result of extreme inebriation, at which point Captain Hawthorne relieved her of two hundred additional bits.”

The Captain laughed. “I think I would have liked Alex Hawthorne,” he mused.

“Funny,” said Max, interrupting from the doorway. “I thought you _were_ Alex Hawthorne.”

The Captain turned sharply in his chair. For a long moment he just stared at Max. Then he relaxed and his face broke out into a cocky grin. 

“Of course I am,” he said. “Me and ADA are just talking about my distant cousin of the same name. Had the ship before me.”

“Is that so,” said Max drily.

“I wouldn’t lie to a vicar.”

“That would make vicars the only ones then,” muttered Max, who had personally witnessed the Captain lying shamelessly through his teeth on several occasions.

“Are you not wearing shoes?” said Hawthorne suddenly, changing the subject. He leaned forward in his chair and peered down at Max’s bare feet.

“I was sleeping,” Max retorted defensively, irrationally embarrassed to have been caught walking around the ship barefoot. “Or at least I was trying to sleep. I only came down here for a shot of Adreno.”

The Captain’s brow furrowed. “Adreno? Are you hurt?”

“No. Well, not really. My knee is giving me a little trouble,” Max admitted reluctantly. “That’s all.”

Hawthorne stood up, unfolding himself from the pilot’s chair in a curiously distracting manner. “Old age catching up with you?” he teased.

“Very amusing,” Max said sourly. “Perhaps you might want to follow it up with an original remark? One that hasn’t already been made by every other member of the crew?”

Ego stung by the allusion to his age – and by the Law, he wasn’t _that_ old, he was just surrounded by idiotic _children_ – Max turned to leave, and foolishly shifted all his weight onto his bad leg, which promptly and humiliatingly collapsed beneath him. He half caught himself on the doorframe, and in the next instant Hawthorne was at his side, slipping a hand under his arm and hauling him upright.

“Take it easy Max,” said the Captain. “Knee giving you ‘a little trouble’ is it?”

“Fuck off Captain,” said Max, but without any heat.

“What terrible language for a vicar,” said Hawthorne.

“Do you know how fixated you are on my being a vicar?” Max complained, shrugging him off. “You bring it up all the time.”

“What can I say, it really does it for me,” said the Captain. “Gets me all hot and bothered. Come on, lets get you that Adreno.”

The pain faded the moment the Adreno entered Max’s system. He needed the vodka to take the edge off the sharp, wakeful feeling that came as a side-effect. The Captain decided to join him for the drink. He hovered not entirely inconspicuously at Max’s side as they climbed the stairs. Presumably in order to be close enough to catch Max if he went down like a ton of bricks again. Max bit down on the urge to snap at him to back off.

Max poured them each a small measure once they were settled in the galley. He knocked his back, enjoying the vicious burn in the back of his throat. Hawthorne on the other hand made a face.

“Don’t like vodka?”

“Oh, I like vodka fine,” said the Captain. “But this isn’t vodka. God knows what this is.”

Max frowned. “Spectrum Vodka is the most popular brand in Halcyon.”

“It’s paint thinner,” said the Captain firmly. “So, how did you hurt your knee? Was it in the back bays? You should’ve said something. I’m not a complete asshole, we could have gone to a doctor.”

“It’s an old injury,” said Max. “I uh… well, I mentioned before that I had spent time on Tartarus. It happened there. It’s fine most of the time.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” said the Captain. “Tartarus…”

“I am not a criminal,” Max interrupted sharply.

“Never said you were,” said the Captain mildly. “I was actually going to ask you what Tartarus is.”

Max stared at him dumbfounded.

“I mean I get that it’s a prison,” Hawthorne continued. “But the way people talk, I’m guessing it’s a real shithole. Where they send the worst of the worst sort of thing?”

“Where the hell are you from Captain Hawthorne?” Max demanded, unable to stop himself. “Everybody in Halcyon knows what Tartarus is. Everybody knows who Chairman Rockwell is. Everyone’s heard of the OSI, and Byzantium, and Auntie Cleo’s. Everybody except _you_.”

Hawthorne watched him carefully for a long moment, like he was silently weighing Max up. “Maybe I’ve got a terrible case of amnesia,” he said at last.

“Pardon my un-vicarlike language Captain, but that is bullshit,” said Max.

“What makes you say that?” said Hawthorne stubbornly. “Maybe I hit my head. Maybe I’m a terrible, tragic case.”

“If you don’t want to tell me Captain, then don’t tell me. But please don’t insult my intelligence.”

Despite his professed loathing for the stuff, Hawthorne poured himself another measure of the Spectrum Vodka and knocked it back. He gave Max another long, inscrutable look.

“So, everybody born in Halcyon knows these things,” he said at last, examining the dregs of vodka in the bottom of his glass like it contained a rare and fascinating organism. “But I don’t know these things.”

Max met his pointed gaze, uncomprehending. The Captain sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I thought you said you were a man of science vicar,” Hawthorne said. “Rational deduction based on the available evidence and all that.”

It took Max a moment, and then at last he realised what Hawthorne was driving at.

“You’re not from Halcyon,” Max breathed, enlightenment dawning. “You only arrived in the colony recently. That’s why you don’t know anything.”

The Captain gave a little salute of affirmation with his glass. “I’m not from Halcyon,” he confirmed. “Although,” he snorted derisively. “I wouldn’t say I arrived recently.”

“It’s been years since I met someone born outside the colony,” Max said, rather floored by this revelation. “Not since I was a child.”

“Yeah, I’m quite the exotic specimen,” said the Captain. He arched an eyebrow and knocked his calf against Max’s. Both of them were tall men. The way they were sitting, turned in towards each other at the corner of the galley table meant that their outstretched legs overlapped casually. Max found he was suddenly hyper-aware of the fact.

It was hardly a revelation that Hawthorne was attractive. Or rather, to be more specific, that _Max_ was attracted _to_ him. He’d noticed it immediately, when they’d met in the OSI church at Edgewater. Parvati Holcomb had entered the church – an unusual enough occurrence on its own – and trailing along in her wake was a stranger, and at once Max had felt the low heat of sexual attraction curl in his belly. He’d ignored it then and had successfully continued to ignore it ever since.

Trying to focus, Max poured himself another vodka. “Where from outside the colony?” he pressed. “How did you arrive in Halcyon? What’s your real name?”

“I think that’s enough revelations about me for tonight,” said the Captain abruptly. “Don’t want to jeopardise my aura of mystery. You sure your knee is alright?”

“I’m perfectly well, thank you.”

“Ask Ellie for some proper painkillers. Don’t want you getting addicted to Adreno.”

“Coming from a paragon of clean living such as yourself Captain, I shall certainly take the warning to heart.”

A languid, amused smile broke out across Hawthorne’s face. His eyes flickered lazily across Max’s face. There was something curiously speculative about his gaze. For some bizarre reason, Max felt his pulse quicken.

Then the moment passed, as quickly as it had arrived. “I’m tired,” said the Captain, standing up. “Goodnight Max.”

“Goodnight Captain,” Max raised his glass.

He’d unravelled some of the mystery then, he thought to himself once the Captain had gone. But he was convinced there was still something Hawthorne – or whatever his damned name really was – was holding back. He was so cagey.

Funny, it hadn’t ever occurred to Max that Hawthorne might have been from outside Halcyon. He knew other colonies existed – and then there was Earth of course. But you just didn’t meet anyone who wasn’t Halcyon born and bred. And they’d stopped broadcasting the aetherwave serials from Earth a long time ago. No news came in from outside the colony, save that everything was fine, and that the Earth Directorate remained pleased with Halcyon’s progress. Those other places and other people seemed so fantastically distant that they might as well not exist.

Max drank up and went back to bed. His knee was mercifully pain free, but it took some time before his thoughts settled enough to allow him to fall asleep.

…

The Captain was _still_ angry with Max. It had been more than a week since the incident with Reginald Chaney, and Hawthorne was still being standoffish and surly around Max, and in turn Max was starting to get pissed off with being treated like he’d pushed Hawthorne’s mother out an airlock.

“You two are creating a real atmosphere, you know that?” Ellie told Max.

“What would you like me to do about it?” Max snapped. He put down the book he was reading with an angry thump.

“I don’t know. What am I, your therapist?” said Ellie.

Parvati had a lot more to say, whether Max was interested in hearing it or not. She cornered him outside the ship. The Unreliable was still in Fallbrook, far from the prying eyes of the Board. Max was leaning on the railing of the tall docking platform, looking out over the rugged landscape of Monarch. The sun was dipping below the horizon, casting everything in a golden pink light. Carnivorous and extremely dangerous creatures called out to each other in the distance.

“So…” Parvati began, in what she probably thought was a casual manner. “You and the Captain aren’t getting on so great at the moment, huh?”

“What business is it of yours?” said Max shortly.

“Well, I care about you both,” said Parvati, with her usual completely candid honesty. “It don’t sit well with me, you two being all sour like you are.”

“I didn’t start it,” Max said, wincing inwardly at how juvenile that sounded.

“You sort of did vicar, what with the lying and all. The Captain took it hard. Maybe a little harder than he ought, I’ll grant you that.”

“If there’s something you want to say me to me Miss Holcomb, just say it,” Max ground out irritably. “I don’t have all day.”

“Oh. Sure. I just… you should talk to him. Both of you should talk. To each other.”

It was inane, asinine advice, and yet two hours later Max found himself heading into the seedy confines of Malin’s House of Hospitality in search of Hawthorne, ready to do just that - talk.

Max didn’t have to look far – the Captain was sat at the bar, drinking a Zero-Gee and smoking a cigarette like he had a grudge against it. He was mercifully alone. If he’d been with Felix or that loudmouth drunk Nyoka then Max would have turned on his heel and walked straight back out again. This was already going to be awkward enough without an audience.

Max slid into the empty seat next to Hawthorne. It took a second for the Captain to register exactly who it was who was sitting next to him. When he did, his eyes narrowed.

“Vicar,” he said shortly.

“Captain,” Max replied, just as brusquely. He ordered a drink, aware that Hawthorne was still giving him the stink eye.

They sat in tense silence for a minute, while Max downed half of his bootleg liquor and mentally fortified himself to ask the question.

“Do you want me off the ship?” he asked as calmly as he could.

Hawthorne’s head snapped round and he looked at Max like he’d grown another head. “What the fuck made you think that?” he demanded.

“You can hardly be surprised that I wondered,” Max said indignantly. “You’ve been treating me like some Mantipillar entrails you stepped in for days now.”

Hawthorne bristled. “Do you _want_ to leave?”

“No!” said Max. And it was true. He very much wanted to stay onboard the Unreliable. After all he reasoned, how else was he going to get to Scylla, and the hermit who might yet unlock the secrets of M. Bakonu’s book?

“Well then, what’s the damned problem?” the Captain griped.

“ _This_ is the damned problem,” Max said, gesturing at Hawthorne’s general person. “You’re not being reasonable.”

“I’m not being fucking reasonable?” said Hawthorne. He was beginning to raise his voice, and Max sensed that they were already on the brink of argument. The sensible thing would have been to try and calm things down. Instead he found himself plowing onwards, almost relishing the prospect of the fight.

“No!” Max exclaimed, banging the palm of his hand on the bar top. Around the House of Hospitality heads were turning to look at them. Even in a den of outlaws like Fallbrook a public argument was good entertainment. “You are _not_ being fucking reasonable. You’re overreacting to one stupid mistake.”

“You lied to me,” Hawthorne hissed.

“Yes I did!” Max shot back. “Are you really going to sit there and pretend _you_ have never lied to _me_? To all of us? Are you, _Alex Hawthorne_?”

The Captain glowered at him. “Fuck you,” he said at last, stubbing his cigarette out angrily.

“I have already apologised,” Max went on angrily. “And I meant it. But when I lied to you we barely knew each other. You were just some stranger who could get me out of Edgewater.”

“Oh, and you think you know me now, do you?” Hawthorne sneered.

“No,” Max ground out irritably. “I barely know a damn thing about you Captain. I don’t even know your fucking _real name_. I don’t know where you came from. I don’t even know what we’re doing risking our necks out here in this monster infested wasteland!”

“You want to stay behind on the ship, you just say the damn word,” Hawthorne snapped.

“I don’t want to stay on the ship, I want you to get off my ass!” Max shot back.

They glared angrily at each other before lapsing into an intensely uncomfortable silence. Max ordered another drink from the bartender, who kept glancing warily between the two of them like she expected them to erupt again any second. They didn’t. Instead they both sat glowering down at the bar top for a good fifteen minutes.

“Why are you such an asshole?” Hawthorne said at last, breaking the silence.

“Because being an asshole is the only way to get anything done in Halcyon,” Max replied. “Why are _you_ such an asshole?”

“Because I’ve been dropped neck deep in shit I didn’t ask for,” Hawthorne said. “And because I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.”

Max peered cautiously at Hawthorne. He looked tired, Max thought. Worn thin. Like he’d had too much booze, cigarettes and Adreno, and not enough sleep.

“What _are_ you doing Captain?” he asked. “Why are we out here? What is it you want from that blathering idiot on the mountain?”

Hawthorne didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Chemicals,” he said at last.

“Chemicals?” said Max blankly. He didn’t know what exactly he’d imagined Hawthorne was up to. Smuggling perhaps. Something criminal certainly. Maybe even something insurrectionist. Where chemicals featured in that picture, he had no idea. “What for?”

The Captain lit up another cigarette and looked sidelong at Max. “That’s my business.”

“And Reginald Chaney was mine.”

“We all risked our necks getting out here so you could find that little weasel.”

“And we’ve all risked our necks getting you to the top of that fucking mountain Captain. I fail to see the difference.”

The Captain stared open mouthed at Max for a moment, visibly searching for a retort to that. Then he scowled and took such a violent drag of his cigarette Max was half afraid he would inhale the thing whole.

After a couple more minutes of sullen silence, Hawthorne aggressively stubbed out the remains of his cigarette and cleared his throat pointedly.

“It is possible I might have been a little bit of a hypocrite.”

“ _Possible_?”

“Just take the fucking apology Max.”

“Oh, is that what that was supposed to be?” Max raised an eyebrow. “In that case, I accept. Let’s just… let’s just forget all about this, shall we?”

“Fine by me.”

The silence that followed was awkward, and for some reason Max found himself compelled to make it more awkward still. “I don’t know what you’re up to Captain, or what your motives are. As you say, that’s your business. But… whatever it is, we all have your back.”

It sounded unbearably mawkish even to Max himself, and he half expected Hawthorne to scoff. But instead the man’s stiff, chilly demeanour melted away all at once. “Thanks Max,” he said. “It’s not… ah shit, it’s not that I don’t trust you…”

“As you’ve been so eager to point out, I have been lying to you Captain. I think you’d be within your rights not to trust me.”

“Yeah, well, I do. More fool me, I guess. Although just to be clear, that doesn’t change the fact you’re an asshole.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Max said sarcastically. He took a deep breath and continued more seriously. “And just for the record, although you are no doubt an inveterate liar yourself, and without question an asshole… well, I trust you as well. We all do.”

Hawthorne’s gaze softened further, and he smiled. Max abruptly felt as though a weight had lifted off his shoulders. He hadn’t realized how much it had bothered him, knowing that Hawthorne was so furious with him. He wanted to say something more but couldn’t think what. So they just wound up staring at one another, the silence stretching out, somehow without growing uncomfortable.

“Aw, that’s sweet,” the voice of the bartender broke in. She was polishing a glass and looking at them with a misty-eyed expression. “My husband used to look at me like that once upon a time, the miserable old dog.”

Max was grateful his high collar hid the flush he _knew_ had crept up his neck. He shot the bartender a look that he hoped conveyed his sudden desire to punt her off a high cliff.

“Want another drink?” Hawthorne muttered, suddenly totally unable to look Max in the eye.

“Yes,” said Max emphatically.

…

It was no secret that the Captain had a soft spot a mile wide for Parvati. Most people, Max had noticed, had a soft spot for her. That wide-eyed, fumbling awkwardness brought something out in them. Max wasn’t entirely immune himself, although he took care not to show it. She was a grown woman, it was ridiculous to not treat her like one.

 _This_ however, this was taking it all much too far. As though Hawthorne tramping around half of Halcyon indulging Miss Holcomb’s half-baked romantic impulses hadn’t been bad enough, now he’d kicked them all off the ship so she could have her little assignation with the Groundbreaker’s chief engineer in private.

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” Max complained for the umpteenth time as he trudged across the Groundbreaker’s promenade, the Captain strolling alongside him. “I would have been perfectly content to remain in my cabin.”

“But Parvati would have known you were there,” said Hawthorne, like that was any kind of reasonable answer. “She’s nervous enough about her date without knowing you were lurking around the place.”

“I wouldn’t be _lurking_ ,” Max protested. “I would be reading a book. In my cabin. I don’t see how that would have any impact on Miss Holcomb’s romantic overtures.”

“You intimidate her, you know that?” the Captain said.

“I certainly never intended to be intimidating,” Max said a touch defensively. “In fact, I always tried to keep an eye on her, after her father died. Which was not easy because she avoided the church like it was the plague house.”

“I’m not saying she doesn’t _like_ you Max. Just that you intimidate her a little. She doesn’t want to embarrass herself in front of you.”

“I had to witness her efforts to procure that damned casserole, I think that ship has already sailed.”

Hawthorne thumped Max lightly on the arm. “Don’t be an asshole vicar. You want this to go well for her too. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

The Lost Hope was open, because the Lost Hope was always open. Stevedores and roughnecks sat slumped over their drinks. Nyoka was sitting at the bar, already several drinks into her evening. They left her to it. She looked like a woman on a mission, and that mission was to get blackout drunk.

“That business with her friends really fucked her up, huh?” Hawthorne said.

“I don’t imagine she was exactly a saint before she met them,” Max said wryly.

“You weren’t there,” the Captain said seriously. “You didn’t see her standing over their graves. She cared about them. That sort of thing leaves its mark.”

“That sort of thing?”

“Losing everything that matters all in one go.” Hawthorne looked suddenly melancholy, knocking back a mouthful of his iceberg-aged whiskey.

“Are you speaking from experience, Captain?” Max asked, curious.

“Not quite…” Hawthorne stared down at the murky brown whiskey, swirling it round in his glass. “Not like that. I just… aw hell, listen to me. Aren’t folks supposed to pour their hearts out _after_ they’re drunk?”

_You can tell me_ Max wanted to say. _Whatever it is, you can tell me._

“I don’t believe I have ever poured my heart out to anyone, drunk or sober,” he said instead. “Vicars tend to be on the receiving end confessions. The amount of tawdry fucking nonsense I’ve had to listen to over the years…”

“Really not a people person, are you Max? What the hell possessed you to become a vicar?”

“Answers,” said Max. “To understand the Plan. To unlock the secrets of the universe. Not to listen to the rambling of idiots.”

“Bet you loved it in Edgewater,” said Hawthorne. “All those dark secrets about canned saltuna.”

They fell into conversation. Despite his protests about being dragged away from his books, Max was enjoying himself. He liked spending time with Hawthorne, more than he’d liked spending time with anyone for a long time. The man was an asshole who enjoyed trying to tear apart Max’s most profound beliefs, and unbelievably Max found he relished it.

The drinks flowed as well as the arguments. Hawthorne was clearly feeling flush, having picked up a decent amount of credits on Monarch doing that absurdly dangerous job for Sublight. The bar got a little more crowded when the shift change rang in, the atmosphere a little more rowdy.

“God this stuff is awful,” Hawthorne said, starting in on his fourth whiskey. “Why the hell am I drinking this?”

“You complain about everything you put in your mouth,” Max pointed out. “Food, drink, even those cigarettes – although I notice that doesn’t stop you.” He shot a meaningful glance at the half-empty packet of Cosmic Smokes the table.

“I don’t complain about _everything_ I put in my mouth,” Hawthorne said with a filthy grin. Max fought – not entirely successfully – to stop the image that conjured up from taking centre stage in his brain. “But everything here really does taste like shit Max, you don’t understand. I mean _look_ at it.” He held up the glass of whiskey.

Max did so. It looked like whiskey to him, and he said so.

“No, no no…” Hawthorne said firmly. “It’s _cloudy_ Max. Whiskey isn’t fucking cloudy.”

“It’s a sign of quality.”

Hawthorne’s face was a picture of absolute horror. “ _A sign of quality_?” he sputtered. “This _place_ I swear to god…”

“Is that not how it is where you’re from?” said Max, as nonchalantly as he could manage. Hawthorne was three whiskies in, a little drunk by now surely, and off his guard. He might take the bait…

And he _did_. “No,” Hawthorne said, still staring contemptuously down at his own drink like it had insulted his mother. “On Earth whiskey is… well I mean sure _some_ of it is crap, but none of it looks like this.”

“On Earth…” Max breathed triumphantly and enjoyed the passage of emotions across Hawthorne’s face.

“Ah shit.” Hawthorne said.

“So, Captain Hawthorne,” Max drawled, taking a long, satisfying sip of his Spectrum vodka. “You’re from Earth. How very interesting.” And it was, it was very fucking interesting.

“Yeah,” Hawthorne said, looking pissed off at himself. “I’m from Earth. God, I probably should have told you all weeks ago.”

“Why keep it a secret at all?” Max demanded. “Are you with the Earth Directorate? I mean no offense Captain, but you don’t _seem_ like you’re with any official body.”

“Are you saying I don’t strike you as a professional man vicar?”

“Oh, you certainly strike me as a professional _something_ ,” Max said. “But that thing is not a bureaucrat.”

Hawthorne’s smiled crookedly like he always did when Max got a good barb in. But then his expression turned sombre quickly.

“It’s really complicated and weird Max. There’s a reason I kept it to myself.”

“If you don’t want to tell me Captain…”

“Nah, you need to…” there was a loud crash from somewhere behind Max, and the sound of breaking glass. “… what the hell is she doing.” Hawthorne stood up so quickly he knocked his chair over. 

Max turned in just enough time to watch Nyoka break a bottle of Zero Gee over a man’s head. Another man was laid out on the floor, but he was already starting to clamber to his feet. A third was pulling a heavy wrench out of his belt.

Twenty eventful minutes later Max was trying to pry a bottle of rum out of Nyoka’s hands, and Captain Hawthorne was trying to persuade a Mardet not to arrest her.

“They started it.”

“Yeah, well she sure as hell finished it,” the Mardet replied. “No offense Captain, but you ain’t Groundbreaker. You’re outsiders, and we can’t have outsiders making trouble.”

“No trouble, I promise,” Hawthorne said. “We’ll take her straight back to the ship. Sober her up.”

“Like hell you will,” Nyoka muttered and tried to take another mouthful of rum. Max yanked it out of her grip and she glared at him.

The Mardet sighed. “Fine. But only because you helped the Chief out with that radiator problem. I was sweating like a cystipig during that one.”

“You know,” said Max a few minutes later as the two of them hauled a stumbling Nyoka through the Groundbreaker’s docks. “When I left Edgewater to pursue the mysteries of the Grand Architect’s great Plan, I did not envision this.”

“It’s the chaotic tapestry of life vicar.”

They got Nyoka onto the Unreliable, and Hawthorne made Max wait at the airlock with her while he scoped out the Parvati situation. She’d managed to wrestle the rum back and was continuing on her determined journey to unconsciousness.

“Don’t you dare throw up on my boots,” Max said.

“No promises preacher.”

There was no sign of Parvati or Chief Junlei, so Nyoka was duly dragged upstairs and deposited in her own cabin to sleep it off.

“G’night assholes!” she called out as the door slid closed.

“You really do find the most charming people Captain,” said Max dryly.

“You know you’re one of them, right?” Hawthorne put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. The smoke drifted in Max’s direction and he made a face and stepped back.

“A fact which makes me question my sanity daily.”

Hawthorne smirked briefly around his cigarette. He inhaled deeply, before exhaling in a long, low breath that sent smoke curling out from his mouth.

“Look, Max, what we were talking about earlier…”

“This would be your… how did you put it again? ‘Complicated and weird’ past?”

“Yeah, that. I owe you an explanation. I owe everyone on this ship an explanation. The truth is, I’ve dragged you all into something. Something big.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “Dragged us all into _what_ exactly?”

“Nothing you can’t walk away from, okay? I promise, I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. I just… I just need to figure out how to put it. And to be sober.”

Max paused. He wanted the answers now. Curiosity burned in him. Curiosity, and a gently simmering sense of irritation. What did Hawthorne mean he’d dragged them into something big? Knowing the Captain, it was probably something illegal. Very illegal. Hawthorne hated the Board, Max knew that much. By the Law - was it treason? Conspiracy? What had he been pulled into without his knowledge? Without his _consent_ damn it all.

Hawthorne was watching him carefully from behind the thin, curling smoke. Max was suddenly overcome with a feeling of… what exactly? Something that he… oh to hell with it. He trusted Hawthorne – sincerely – but that wasn’t all it was. What was the point in lying to himself about it? He knew what he felt for the bastard. In truth, he was angry at himself for letting it get so far. He’d joined the Unreliable to seek answers about the Plan, not to moon over its captain like a lovestruck idiot fresh out the seminary. It was unacceptable.

“Tomorrow then,” he said, keeping his expression carefully schooled. “Goodnight Captain.”

“Night Max,” said Hawthorne, his face just as inscrutable.

…

Byzantium was like nowhere else Max had ever seen. It might as well have been another world, it was so far removed from the grimy, humble squalor of Edgewater. The city had a near mythical reputation amongst the people of Halcyon, and somehow it didn’t just live up to that reputation, it managed to exceed it in terms of sheer ridiculous opulence.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Max would probably have found the place intoxicating. A magnificent testament to what humans _could_ achieve when the strong were allowed to thrive. Yes, he was almost certain that’s what he would have thought. Byzantium for the strong, Edgewater for the weak. Everyone in their proper place – the place that the Plan dictated for them.

He would probably have glossed over the fact that he himself had been a resident of Edgewater for several years. He wasn’t like the others. He’d _chosen_ to be there in pursuit of a greater cause.

The Max of now leaned on the ornate wrought iron railing and observed the bustle of Prosperity Plaza without thinking any of that. He found Byzantium… well, he wasn’t sure what exactly he thought of it. Oh, it was certainly beautiful. The gardens, the art, the majestic architecture - all breath-taking. But the _people_.

If Max didn’t like the inhabitants of Byzantium, then Hawthorne outright loathed them.

“Look at all these assholes,” Hawthorne groused contemptuously. He was leaning on the railing next to Max. Felix was on the far side of the Captain, drinking it all in with wide eyes.

“But you think everyone is an asshole, Boss,” Felix said.

Hawthorne paused. “Yeah, alright, I will concede that. But _these_ assholes are something else.”

“It is pretty though,” said Felix. “When I was growing up in the back bays, I don’t think I could ever have imagined a place like this. Everything’s so… so… _shiny_.”

“A truly poetic description,” Max murmured.

“The murder room in the maintenance tunnels wasn’t shiny,” said Hawthorne darkly.

“Oh yeah, that was mostly sticky. And red.” Felix looked out over the Plaza and sighed. “Just goes to show I guess, just ‘cause something’s pretty on the outside don’t mean it isn’t ugly on the inside.”

Max was almost impressed. “What an uncharacteristically profound observation. Are you feeling alright Felix? Did you hit your head?”

“Don’t be an asshole Max,” Hawthorne muttered, gently elbowing him in the ribs.

“Forgive me Captain, but according to you we’re surrounded by them. I’m just trying to blend in.”

“You know vicar, you do sort of blend in round here,” said Felix. “Better than the rest of us at least.”

Max suspected he would once have been secretly flattered to hear that. But now… “I’m insulted.”

“I don’t mean you’re like them on the _inside_ ,” Felix said hurriedly. “At least, not anymore. Not since you… well… you know…”

“Got high as a kite and had a grand spiritual revelation?” Hawthorne suggested.

“Yeah, that.”

“Nah, Max was never like these shitweasels,” Hawthorne said firmly. “Never even close.”

Max smiled, oddly heartened to hear it. He wasn’t sure it was true, but it was gratifying to think that Captain Hawthorne believed it. Gratifying and something else. Something that made a pleasant warm feeling bloom briefly in his chest.

“Hey!” said Felix suddenly, standing bolt upright. “Is that Glenn Latierre?” He leant forward over the railing and pointed down into the Plaza. “Hey Max! Look! Is that him?”

Max squinted, following Felix’s pointed finger to a man who possibly, maybe, sort of looked like famed tossball player Glenn Latierre. “Could be,” he hedged.

“Do you think he’d give me his autograph?” Felix babbled excitedly. “I’m gonna follow him. Just for a bit! Just to see if it’s really him. Glenn Latierre! In real life! Oh man, this is amazing. Wow.”

Max and Hawthorne watched him as he jogged after the figure of possibly-Glenn-Latierre-but-possibly-not. If Max blended in looks-wise amongst the citizens of Byzantium, then Felix was the polar opposite. He exuded a kind of innate scruffiness that made him stand out like a sore thumb.

“What do you think the odds are that I’m going to have to go and bail him out of some kind of Byzantium jail after they catch him going through this guy’s trash?” Hawthorne said.

“Felix will be fine. He’s not quite as stupid as he appears. Although I will grant you, on occasion he does appear to be as dumb as a box of moon rocks.”

“You’re a dick to him,” said Hawthorne. He straightened up and grinned at Max as he took a battered packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. “But I think deep down you’ve got a soft spot for the kid.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Max sniffed, even though he knew he did. Felix was a walking disaster, but he was theirs. He belonged to the Unreliable, same as Max did. Same as they all did. Once Max would have sneered at the sentimentality of that idea. Not anymore.

The sun was starting to dip below the towering skyline. Max inhaled deeply. Even the air was better here. Cleaner. Sharper.

“How do you feel about getting a drink, Captain?” he asked.

“You know me Max, always ready to drown my sorrows.”

There were a lot of places to get drunk in Byzantium. It seemed that the rich liked their liquor as much as the poor. Max and Hawthorne wound up in a little place not too far from the berth where the Unreliable was docked. It was heavy on rich, dark wood and lots of gilt and marble. The bartender nearly had a fit when Hawthorne walked in, dressed in clothes that had seen better decades, dried blood still spattered on his collar and engine grease under his fingernails.

It was all deliberate. Max knew for a fact that Hawthorne owned less catastrophically shabby clothing. His hands never normally had engine oil on them. Even the cigarette lolling carelessly between his lips was a calculated affectation. The Captain smoked – didn’t he fucking just – but Max had never seen him walking around with an unlit cigarette stuck in his mouth like some slovenly dockhand.

Privately Max thought it was more than a little childish. Doctor Fenhill was even worse, swaggering about the place playing with her gun – not a euphemism thankfully – and cursing loudly. They needed to fly under the radar on Byzantium. Conspicuous defiance of Byzantium’s stuffy rules might be personally satisfying, but it was drawing a lot of unwanted attention.

They sat outside on the bar’s little terrace. The vodka tasted unusually good – even though it was still Spectrum. Max wondered if it simply tasted better because of the refined surroundings, or if they made a different, higher quality batch for sale in Byzantium. He wouldn’t have been surprised.

Hawthorne wasn’t in much of a chatty mood. He drank his Zero Gee and worked his way through three cigarettes, watching the people passing by on the street with a pensive look on his face. Max wasn’t sure, but he thought he could take a guess at what was preying on the Captain’s mind.

“Do you think it’s true?” he asked Hawthorne at last. “What Doctor Chartrand said? About the colony starving?”

Hawthorne shrugged listlessly. “Why would she lie?”

“She might just be wrong.”

“You really think that Max?”

“No,” Max admitted. “No, I don’t.”

“Funny, ain’t it?” Hawthorne said. He gestured at the sweeping boulevard and the tall buildings that flanked it. “All this wealth and power, and it turns out the whole damn thing is sitting on a knife edge. And none of them have the faintest idea.”

Max considered this. “Almost everything in life is far more impermanent than we care to imagine,” he said.

“That some new wisdom you picked up tripping off your face?”

“It is something I realised when I at last saw the truth of the universe,” Max said archly.

“And what is the truth of the universe?” Hawthorne pressed, visibly amused.

“That there _is_ no truth. No higher purpose. No great plan. No plan at all, except that which we make for ourselves.”

Hawthorne stared at him. “I can’t decide if that’s uplifting or depressing."

“Could be both,” said Max with a shrug. “Could be neither.”

“I’ll tell you what it is – cause for another goddamned drink.”

“If Doctor Chartrand _is_ right about the future of the colony…” Max said some minutes later when they had fresh drinks in front of them. “Captain, are we sure that reviving the colonists on the Hope is a good idea? Are we not potentially condemning them to starvation along with everyone else in Halcyon? And to be brutally honest… aren’t they just more mouths than Halcyon can’t afford to feed?”

Max half expected Hawthorne to explode in indignant outrage at the very suggestion. After all, the people on the Hope were _his_ people. But instead he just sat there, slumped back in his seat, looking tense.

“I thought about that too,” he admitted quietly. “And the honest fucking truth is, I don’t know. I just don’t know Max. All I do know is this – if we don’t revive them now, they’re as good as dead anyway. Eventually the power on those cryopods will go. And as for Halcyon… some of the people on the Hope were geniuses. The best and brightest Earth had to offer. They might be able to find a way to save the colony. It’s a slim chance. I’m not pretending it isn’t. But it’s better than no chance at all, and from where I’m sitting, no chance at all is exactly what Halcyon’s got right now.”

Max considered this answer for a long while. “I agree,” he said at last. “Forgive me for asking Captain.”

“Don’t worry about it. I mean… _fuck_ …” Hawthorne rubbed the palm of his hand across his face, looking weary. “Maybe I am making a huge mistake here. Maybe I’m just going to fuck the colony _and_ the Hope.”

Max sought for a way to change the subject quickly. “The best and brightest Earth had to offer,” he said. “Did that include you?”

“Hah, god no,” said Hawthorne. “Not me. I’m just a nobody.”

“A nobody? The man who’s upended Halcyon from one corner to the next?”

“I’m nothing special vicar. I’m just the first one Phineas didn’t turn to goop.”

“What made you join the Hope then?” Max asked, curious.

“Oh, the marketing was real flashy. A new life out there amongst the stars! Wonderful opportunities await you!”

“A new life? What was so bad about the old one?”

Hawthorne shrugged. “Nothing was _bad_ about it. It just wasn’t anything. I wanted to start again. I wanted to be someone better. More interesting. I wanted… an _adventure_ as pathetically naïve as that sounds. I certainly fucking got it, didn’t I? Talk about being careful what you wish for.”

“So you don’t have anyone waiting for you in those cryopods? No friends? No family? Nobody… that is to say, nobody special?”

Max had tried to keep the question casual and mildly disinterested - but judging by the ghost of a smile on Hawthorne’s face he hadn’t entirely succeeded.

“Nope. Nobody special at all. Why, what’s the interest Max?”

“Oh, no reason,” Max said aloofly. “Idle curiosity.”

“And what about you?” Hawthorne said, sitting up straighter. “Is there anybody special you’ve left behind? Or… god, please tell me the OSI doesn’t go in for celibacy.”

“No,” said Max primly. “Celibacy is _not_ a requirement.”

“Thank god for that.”

“Really Captain? What’s the interest?”

“Oh, just idle curiosity.” Hawthorne said. He smiled warmly at Max, and before he could even think about it, Max found himself smiling back.

“Well in that case,” Max said. “I can tell you there hasn’t ever been anybody particularly special in my life. My… assignations have all been short term affairs. My work took precedence over everything else.” He laughed wryly. “In retrospect, perhaps my time _would_ have been better spent in other people’s beds after all.”

“Still time yet,” Hawthorne murmured. His eyes dropped briefly to Max’s mouth.

There had been moments before when Max had thought… but the Captain had that sort of manner. When it came to Alex Hawthorne, Max had been very careful not to see things that weren’t there. Not to simply see what he wanted to in the teasing remarks and easy attention. But there was something simmering between them now, he was sure of it. Max was a priest, he wasn’t _dead_.

“I doubt an old man like me will get any more offers,” Max said.

“I don’t know…” Hawthorne said. He rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward. Without even thinking about it Max found himself leaning in as well. Abruptly he realised that Hawthorne’s calf was pressing against his underneath the table. When did that happen? Without a second thought Max let his leg press back into the contact. “You might be surprised. The whole buttoned-up preacher bit might really do it for some people.”

“Well Captain Hawthorne, if you meet any of those people, do be sure to send them my way.”

“Why should I do all the work? Maybe you should put some effort in yourself.”

Max shifted in his seat so more of his leg was pressed against Hawthorne’s. Their feet knocked together, and Hawthorne hooked his ankle around the back of Max’s.

“You might at least suggest where I ought to start looking,” said Max.

Hawthorne smiled, and his eyes once again dropped to Max’s mouth. But this time he stared openly for a long moment before meeting Max’s gaze again. “You that out of practice Max?” he murmured. Well, if I was going to make a suggestion then… oh dear god, is that Felix?”

Hawthorne suddenly sat bolt upright, staring over Max’s shoulder. Max turned, and sure enough, there was Felix. More accurately, it was Felix, two Byzantium guards, and a pair of handcuffs.

“I was only joking about bailing him out of jail,” groaned Hawthorne.

“Let me go you Byzantium bastards!” Felix was yelling. “I got a right to be here! Hey, hey! You listening to me asshole?”

“Excuse me vicar,” Hawthorne groaned, standing up. “I think I’ve gotta go bribe someone.”

Of course. Of _fucking_ course. Fucking Felix. Max was going to kill him. What had Hawthorne been going to say? What suggestion had he been about to make?

“Of course Captain. I’ll see you back on the ship later.” Max privately applauded himself for how composed he kept his voice.

“Yeah, see you there…” Hawthorne said, already hurrying off towards where Felix was being dragged away by the Byzantium toughs.

Max threw the rest of his drink back in one and tried to resist the urge to bang his head against the surface of the luxurious wrought iron table. 

“Would you like another?” a nervous looking waiter said, hovering at the edge of the terrace.

“Make it a double.”

…

The tension was thick in the air. Despite Max being alone in the galley, he could feel it pervading every nook and cranny of the ship. Even the dull rumbling of the Unreliable’s engines sounded different. More urgent. Like the ship itself knew it was speeding through the void towards a reckoning.

Max poured two glasses of whiskey. He took them down to the lower deck, his footsteps reverberating loudly on the steel grating.

Captain Hawthorne was sitting in the navigator’s chair in the cockpit. His chin was resting atop his closed fist, and he was staring out into space with a distant look on his face. ADA’s screen flickered as Max entered, the display flitting quickly from naked concern to the computer’s usual expression of aloof superiority.

Hawthorne jolted out of his reverie when Max entered. He turned to look as Max held out one of the glasses of whiskey.

“I thought you could do with this,” Max said as Hawthorne took the offering. He leaned back against the cockpit bulkhead and sipped his own drink.

“Thanks,” said Hawthorne wearily. He slumped back heavily in the chair and drank some of the whiskey down. Then he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, as though letting some of the weight slip from his shoulders. “What are the others doing?”

“Sleeping. Or at least trying to. Which is what you should be doing.”

“Don’t know if I can. Besides, I can’t help but notice you’re awake as well.”

“I’m only here to try and persuade you to go to bed.”

“Oh, _now_ you’re trying to get me into bed? As we’re flying towards our certain doom? You’ve got a real sense of timing vicar.”

“Very amusing. Drink your whiskey Captain.”

Hawthorne did so, and for a couple of minutes they sat in companionable silence.

“What’s it like?” Hawthorne said eventually, breaking the peace. “Tartarus, I mean.”

“Dark. Miserable,” Max said frankly. “Heavy security. Everything you’d expect from the most secure prison in the whole system.”

“No fond memories then?”

Max’s thoughts briefly swam with the smell of blood and sweat, the red mist of violence, and the feeling of his fists connecting with flesh and soft cartilage as he let the rage flow through him.

“No.”

“I’m sorry Max. You shouldn’t be going back there. None of you should be going there. This isn’t your fight.”

Max bristled. “Not our fight? With all due respect, we’ve been shot at from one end of this system to the other. Things have tried to _eat us_. We’ve committed several major crimes and hijacked an entire ship full of frozen people. We’re Halcyon’s most wanted criminals. And _now_ you want to tell me that it’s not my fight? No offense Captain, but fuck off.”

Hawthorne stared, briefly dumbstruck. “Yeah alright, fair point,” he said at last. “I just… fuck Max, we’re probably going to die tomorrow.”

“Very likely,” Max agreed. “But then again, perhaps not.”

“Wow, that’s real comforting, thanks.”

“I do know this for certain,” Max said firmly. “You need to get some sleep Captain, or you won’t be able to shoot straight.”

Hawthorne threw back the last of his whiskey, then briefly pressed the cool glass against his forehead. “If I can shoot straight after five bottles of Zero Gee, I reckon I can shoot straight on no sleep.”

Max stood up straight, taking his weight off the bulkhead. He plucked the empty glass from Hawthorne’s hand and leaned down slightly to look him in the eye.

“Go to bed,” he said softly but resolutely.

“Yeah… okay. Okay.”

Hawthorne trailed along after Max as they climbed the stairs. Truthfully, for all he was insisting the Captain try to get some sleep, Max wasn’t all that sure he was going to be able to rest himself. The idea of being back on Tartarus was weighing heavily.

He’d imagined it once or twice, on other nights when he couldn’t sleep and his thoughts wouldn’t stop straying to dark places. Putting a foot out of line, making an enemy of the wrong person, or simply being the wrong face in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then finding himself dragged back to the infamous prison again.

He’d never once imagined himself returning like this. Ready to pull a full-blown prison break in a do-or-die act of grand treason against the Board.

The memory of Tartarus had always made Max feel weak. That weakness had filled him with rage. Perhaps, he mused silently to himself, this was an opportunity to finally put that ghost to rest. Or alternatively, to die in a hail of bullets trying.

“Goodnight Captain,” Max said when they reached the doorway to Hawthorne’s cabin.

“Night Max.”

Max was turning away to head up to the crew deck when Hawthorne suddenly caught him by the arm and pulled him back. The next thing Max knew there was a palm wrapping around the back of his neck and a warm mouth on his.

Max faltered for just a moment, and then almost without thinking his hands were on Hawthorne’s back, pulling him closer.

“Just in case we die tomorrow,” said the Captain when they broke apart an inch or two.

“Good plan,” was all Max could think to say before kissing him again.

“ _Don’t_ die tomorrow,” Hawthorne murmured against Max’s mouth. The hand on Max’s neck moved up to tangle in the hair on the back of his head.

“I will certainly endeavour not to,” Max murmured, pressing his forehead against Hawthorne’s. “If you do the same.”

“We’re agreed then. No dying tomorrow.” Hawthorne paused for a brief moment. “’Course, we’re both lying bastards.”

Max couldn’t deny the truth of that. “In that case we’ll just have to prove that we’re now men of our word, won’t we Captain?”

“I don’t plan on becoming a saint vicar.”

“I certainly fucking hope not,” said Max emphatically and kissed him again.

The parted ways after that. Max went back to his little cabin and sat for a while at his desk, staring down at the copy of M. Bakonu’s journal that had sent his life spiralling off in such an unpredictable direction. He picked the book up, running his fingers across the cover and down the crack in the spine. He even opened it, flicking through the pages of incomprehensible French.

If it wasn’t for this book – a book Max couldn’t even fucking _read_ – where would he be now? He probably wouldn’t ever have spoken more than a few words to the mysterious stranger that had wandered into town. He would never even have gone to Edgewater in the first place.

Max snorted derisively and put the book down. How typical. Just as he abandoned the idea of some kind of grand cosmic plan, suddenly the hand of fate was interfering in his life.

He got ready for bed and lay down, listening to the engines pushing the Unreliable ever closer to Tartarus. He didn’t expect to sleep, but within moments he was gone.

…

The news that Chief Junlei and the Mardets had stormed Tartarus and taken down that asshole Rockwell single-handed had spread through the Groundbreaker like wildfire. The fact that the truth was significantly more complicated than that - and Junlei herself kept trying to tell everyone as much - didn’t seem to matter. The Groundbreaker had taken on the Board and _won_. It was time to celebrate. It was time to get _drunk_.

Tomorrow there would be trouble. Tomorrow they’d have to confront the fact that the colony was starving with their bellies full. Tomorrow they’d have to deal with the Hope. And Max was damned sure the rest of the Board wasn’t going to just roll over and place nice. No, tomorrow there would definitely be big trouble.

But tonight the drinks were flowing. The crowd spilled out of the Lost Hope and onto the promenade. The atmosphere was positively euphoric. Half the crowd were already blissfully tanked, riding the wave of triumph and liquor.

Not that Max knew anything about it. He was a long way away from the party, back at the docks, boarding the otherwise empty Unreliable. He and Captain Hawthorne had slipped away, entirely unnoticed amidst the revelry.

They just about made it inside the airlock before they were all over each other.

“I don’t know what I want more,” Hawthorne said, dragging his mouth away from Max’s to mumble against his jaw. “To take this damn priest get-up off of you, or to make you keep it on.”

“Really?” said Max, who was preoccupied trying to undo every tie and zipper he could find on the Captain’s person. “I thought maybe you were being sarcastic when you uh…”

“Kept on saying the priest thing got me hot? Fuck Max, I really, really wasn’t…”

They stumbled awkwardly towards Hawthorne’s cabin, unwilling to stop kissing and groping each other for any serious length of time. They stalled halfway up the stairs. Max had gotten Hawthorne wedged into the corner, up against the wall, and found that he couldn’t quite bring himself to move.

They kissed hungrily. Max pressed forward, pushing Hawthorne back into the wall and grinding their bodies together. Hawthorne responded by making an obscene noise and biting Max’s lower lip. His hands grabbed Max’s ass and pulled him in so that they were pressed together even tighter. Hawthorne’s mouth tasted of cigarettes, and Max found he didn’t care in the slightest.

“Alex…” Max groaned.

Hawthorne’s head flew back so quickly he knocked it hard on the bulkhead. “Don’t call me that,” he said.

Max arched an eyebrow. “Why not? That’s your name isn’t it?” He leaned in close, bracketing both arms on either side of Hawthorne. “Last names seem a touch formal at this point, don’t you think? And I'm definitely not calling you Captain in bed.” He ground their bodies together again until Hawthorne inhaled sharply. “Alex…”

“You bastard,” Hawthorne groaned.

“Alex…” Max murmured, kissing the long, sharp curve of Hawthorne’s jawline. “Alex…” his mouth brushed over Hawthorne’s ear and kissed the high point of his cheek. “Alex…” he kissed Hawthorne sweetly on the mouth.

“What the hell do I see in you?” Hawthorne complained, although his pupils were blown wide with arousal.

“If there’s something else you’d prefer me to call you when we’re together like this…” Max said. He kissed Hawthorne filthily, all teeth and tongue. “Some other name you want me to use. All you’ve got to do is say.”

Hawthorne’s eyes glittered playfully. “You think I’m gonna crack vicar?”

“I don’t know,” said Max. He’d managed to get his hands inside Hawthorne’s dirty and bloodstained jumpsuit and was now working on getting them underneath the man’s t-shirt. The sudden heat of bare skin under his palms felt like victory. “Are you, _Alex_?”

Hawthorne made a show of scowling, although it was rather undermined by the flush on his face and the very definite fact that he was hard against Max’s thigh. Max was enjoying himself. This was what he’d craved. This playfulness. This intimacy. The old Max would never have allowed himself this. He’d have been too concerned with his great mission, his aloof sense of superiority. The old Max had been a fucking idiot.

“Alex,” Max said, kissing beneath Hawthorne’s jaw. He had to suppress a groan when Hawthorne finally managed to undo his belt and wasted no time in taking advantage. “Alex…” he kissed the top of Hawthorne’s neck, slowly moving lower and lower, murmuring the Captain’s supposed name between each press of his lips.

“Alright, alright, you win,” Hawthorne groaned when Max reached his clavicle. He leaned in and mumbled a name into Max’s ear.

“Really?” Max said, surprised.

“What’s wrong, don’t think it suits me?”

Max paused, sincerely considering the question. He stared at Hawthorne’s face, drinking in every little feature and blemish. Eventually he met the curious eyes watching him back.

“No,” Max said at last. “It suits you.”

Hawthorne smiled, pleased. Max felt a suddenly overwhelming surge of affection threaten to overtake him. He had to kiss Hawthorne again. It started out sweet, but rapidly became downright filthy.

“If you come to bed with me _right fucking now_ I’ll tell you anything else you want to know,” Hawthorne moaned.

“Anything?” said Max, arching a sceptical eyebrow. “Will it be the truth?”

“Do you care?” said Hawthorne, wandering hands groping at a certain part of Max’s anatomy.

“No,” said Max empathetically.

Hawthorne grinned. “It would be the truth,” he admitted. “I’ll even tell you my real last name.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’m saving it for the afterglow.”

“Don’t count on being able to speak,” Max teased.

Hawthorne’s eyes gleamed. “That’s quite the statement.”

“Believe me, I intend to deliver.”

“Well, I’ll drink to that,” said Hawthorne, before kissing Max with an almost wild determination. He then grabbed Max by his undone and rumpled collar and dragged him the rest of the way up the stairs.

**Author's Note:**

> Hawthorne's weird hot priest kink is my weird hot priest kink in not so subtle disguise.


End file.
